THE EOMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



Echinocactus, like water-butts for bulk; one of 

 which weighed upwards of seven hundred pounds, 

 and the other about two thousand pounds. 



The species of Cereus which with us appear as 

 green, succulent, angular stems, and bear their 

 elegant, scarlet blossoms, adorned with a bundle 

 of white stamens, grow, in the arid plains of 

 South America, to thick lofty pillars or massive 

 branching candelabra. Travellers in Cumana 

 have spoken with enthusiasm of the grandeur of 

 these rows of columns, when the red glow of sun- 

 set illumines them, and casts their lengthening 

 shadows across the plain. 



A kindred species in the Rocky Mountains of the 

 northern continent has been thus described by a 

 recent traveller:— 



"This day we saw, for the first time, the giant 

 cactus (Cereus giganteus) ; specimens of which 

 stood at first rather widely apart, like straight 

 pillars ranged along the sides of the valley, but, 

 afterwards, more closely together, and in a differ- 

 ent form — namely, that of gigantic candelabra, of 

 six-and-thirty feet high, which had taken root 

 among stones and in clefts of the rocks, and rose 

 in solitary state at various points. 



"This Cereus giganteus, the queen of the cactus 

 tribe, is known in California and New Mexico 

 under the name of Petahaya. The missionaries 

 who visited the country between the Colorado 

 and the Grila, more than a hundred years ago, 

 speak of the fruit of the Petahaya, and of the 

 natives of the country using it for food ; and they 

 also mention a remarkable tree that had branches, 

 but no leaves, though it reached the height of 



sixty feet, and was of considerable girth 



The wildest and most inhospitable regions appear 



to be the peculiar home of this plant, and its 



128 



